Please help save Beyond Jazz!

I can't believe that Beyond Jazz on XM is slated to go off the air in just a few days....

It's my favorite channel. I listen to it several hours a day. It's great background music while I'm working. I discover lots of cool new music too. I don't know what I'm going to do now.

What are they thinking? It's a whole major genre of music! Get rid of one of the country or rock channels or something. Modern jazz is a vibrant style of music that is being produced NOW!

If they start gutting the variety and deeper playlists, Sirius/XM is going to resemble terrestrial radio without the commercials and terrestrial radio sucks! They have already gotten rid of the punk channel. This is BS!

Please email and call SIRIUS/XM and plead with them to keep Beyond Jazz! Tell them you want variety and deeper playlists. Tell them want the music to be programmed by DJ's who are passionate about the music.......

Sirius already canned their modern jazz channel, Plant Jazz, awhile back already. I'm also hearing that The Village, XM's folk channel, is slated to go too...

I'm really worried about the deeper playlists on the XM decade channels becoming more like the SIRI decade channels, which play it too safe with mostly top 10 songs I've already heard a million times...

How can there be music discovery with playlists that only focus on the overplayed hits?

Well folks, I know a lot of you have been asking what is going on, why was I laid off, what will become of the channel and Russ etc etc. I now have some answers for you… and I am ready to talk about them. Admittedly it took me some time to decompress and adjust to no longer being a part of the one thing that I sunk every bit of my time, passion and effort into for the last seven years.

Before I get into the sad part of this, let me preface it by filling you all in on how it all began for me.

I interviewed for XM Satellite Radio on September 11th 2001… the day the planes hit those buildings. It was not only a day that changed the USA, but it changed my life completely. I began what would be the best point of my career thus far. Never in my life have I enjoyed a job more, and I have always spent my time in jobs that I liked. That was something I made sure of, to follow a career path and to make sure that if I was going to do something for over 50 hrs a week, I better damn well like it.

I loved XM. I loved their philosophy, their passion for music and quality programming, choice, commercial free uninterrupted music. I loved that they were on a cutting edge of technology and I was fortunate enough to work alongside some of the most brilliant people I will ever have the opportunity to work with. I watched this service go from no satellites, watched them launch them, watched the subscriber base grow, helped grassroots word of mouth growth and essentially felt like I was making the world a better place, through exposing this incredible music to the masses.

I enjoyed every day. I loved the people I met. The musicians. Their stories. I loved the music I was exposed to. I LOVED helping unknown bands with a passion for jazz get played to the widest audience they could ever possibly imagine being exposed to… simply by sending me a copy of their CD in the good ol US Mail.

It was the most rewarding and selfless "job" I could ever imagine. I could not believe how fortunate I was and was thankful every day for it.

Then there was merger talk. Merger talks with the rival we grew to hate just because they were our only competition and we needed that rivalry. And it was that way from the start. We always knew we were the better company. I can not speak for other XMers but I felt betrayed with the thought of a merger with THEM! How could we be negotiating with the enemy! We always had more subscribers, we always had better content, better programming, better technology, better products, better talent. Who cares that they could (NOT) afford to pay Howard Stern's ridiculous salary, so much damn money yet they won him anyway! STUPID! His programming is trash… all T&A and the same thing regurgitated day after day. How many tits can you guess are implants or not in one week? Ugh! This is what they chose to spend their money on. They canned their Modern Jazz channel for a Grateful Dead channel. A band that stopped making music in the 90's. Modern Jazz is STILL being made every day. Sixty years of incredible improvisational music unrepresented on their service… and now ours. Unacceptable! We are talking Miles here… among SO many others.

I could not believe we were seriously merging. Our CEO bailed on us. Ok, his wife was ill and I understand family coming first. But then people started leaving in droves, as if they gave up the ship. Lee Abrams… gone. Eric Logan… gone. The people finally left in charge were essentially there to do the "handoff". The writing was on the wall a long time ago. But the merger took so long we truly missed our window of opportunity to be competitive. A year and a half later and here we are… struggling… and in the midst of what is now a hostile takeover and a recession. This is not a merger of equals… if it were there would be equal XMers to Sirius folks. It is not that way.

I was laid off unexpectedly on Oct 5th. It was a shock and I am still trying to recover. It is hard to shake off and let go of something that was my life. The channel is done Nov 14th and Russ is being laid off that day as well. 80 people in Programming (XM Programming) were laid off last week. It is over. The dream is over and the service is done.

I am not sure what else to say in this regard. I have no idea what this service will now be. I can honestly say I do not care at this point. I am moving on and so are so many others. Not by choice.

Russ Davis and I are planning to continue to work together in some capacity. STAY TUNED. I am working on JamminJazz.com and he has RussDavisMOJA.com. We are still deciding what we can and can not do with those sites. We would like to continue to provide you with the latest and greatest new and old and fusion music we know of…. Somehow.

So please stay in touch, and please stay with Beyond Jazz until the end. We promise to continue to make every day, every hour as good as it was… until they flick the switch. You can bet on that!

THANK YOU ALL for your devotion and support over the years, the channel would never have been what it was if it had not been for you. YOU are the reason we were the World's ONLY Modern Jazz Channel….

Now the Beyond Jazz program director, Russ Davis, who was just fired from XM along with Michelle Sammartino, the DJ that was just fired, have started their own website where they will have an internet radio station for all of the Beyond Jazz listeners to go when Beyond Jazz is taken off of the air in a few days. I just heard Russ Davis telling listeners to go there just now while I was listening to Beyond Jazz. It's kind of like when Howard Stern was telling his terrestrial radio listeners to follow him to Satellite radio! They even had the website displayed on the screen of my Inno. What the hell is SIRI management doing? What are they thinking? They have no idea how big of a mistake they are making by getting rid of Beyond Jazz and all of the other genre channels...

HEY! YO! Modern Jazz Lover…welcome to www.russdavismoja.com. This site is under construction and will be up and running in the very near future. We hope to make it a place where MoJa (modern jazz the way we see it) lives, breathes and evolves. We’ve got some cool stuff planned so bookmark it and stay in touch.
This is Russ Davis here, the former program director of XM satellite radio’s previous home of modern jazz, XM 72- Beyond Jazz, which was recently taken away from the system. My friend and associate on the channel, Michelle Sammartino, and I are very upset for you and all the folks who loved hearing this music on the channel, as well as, of course and primarily, the artists who finally had an outlet for their creative new take on jazz. Lastly, Michelle and I have put our hearts and souls into this and believe me it hurts. We’re not through yet, though, and below you’ll see some messages we’re putting out there about our feelings now and our look to the future. Please take note and thanks again so much for your love of the music and your support!

I want to talk about MoJa …if you’ve been a Beyond Jazz listener you know that MoJa means Modern Jazz as heard on the only channel that played the 5 + decades of jazz that cover the middle ground between smooth and traditional. It’s fusion, funk, acid jazz, techno, world jazz, the new jazz singers, nu-jazz, acid bebop, hip-hop jazz, jam-band jazz, nouveau swing and all the other forms that have come along as the music has progressed. I want to tell you that Michelle & I plan on making MoJaRadio a reality soon by transferring the programming of Beyond Jazz to a new website. Wish us luck and thanks again for caring!

I got this post from today off of XMfan from someone who has been in touch with them....

"I emailed them both this AM and both have replied. Russ implied that there will soon be portable players for streaming internet radio in the car. From that, I'm guessing they plan some kind of continuation of XM72-type music on the internet. Both confirmed November 14th is the last day of the channel. Russ is still at XM until then, Michelle is already gone (but alive and well and answering email)."

Look, fellas... maybe I ain't a jazz fan like you guys, but, I think we're in the same boat here. And I think you could tell from my name over there what I really mean.

We both got our stations canned so that bullshit could take its place.

Now, look, I know you're all for grouping together and petitions and stuff, and that's activism, that's fantastic... but there's only one thing we can do: communicate with them in the language they're familiar with: cancel that shit, and write them letters telling them just why you cancelled, and what stations they could bring back that would make you happy.

That's what I did. The folks in control have been trying to stamp out punk rock for generations, and by now we're pretty familiar with how to go down swinging, and maybe even do some good on the way.

Look, fellas... maybe I ain't a jazz fan like you guys, but, I think we're in the same boat here. And I think you could tell from my name over there what I really mean.

We both got our stations canned so that bullshit could take its place.

Now, look, I know you're all for grouping together and petitions and stuff, and that's activism, that's fantastic... but there's only one thing we can do: communicate with them in the language they're familiar with: cancel that shit, and write them letters telling them just why you cancelled, and what stations they could bring back that would make you happy.

That's what I did. The folks in control have been trying to stamp out punk rock for generations, and by now we're pretty familiar with how to go down swinging, and maybe even do some good on the way.

I agree with you about FUNGUS. It was a class act channel with those electric surf specials. FACTION sucks in comparison and is no replacement at all.

I also agree with you about what will have any impact in getting your channel back. The current management only understands the threat and/or actuality of sub loss and how that affects the bottom line......